Symbol and Secret: Chapter Four

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THE LAST PAGE of the first dated lithograph of the Kitáb-i Íqán, published in Bombay, probably by Naseri Press. This edition, 214 pages, bears the date 1310 A.H. (1892-93 C.E.) and is in the hand of the celebrated Bahá'í calligrapher Mishkin-Qalam. Three copies are held at the Bahá'í World Centre, catalogued as BP362.K8.1892. The only other known copy is in private hands in the Afsharian Library, Los Angeles.
(Courtesy of the Bahá'í World Centre.)

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CHAPTER FOUR

EXEGETICAL TECHNIQUES IN
THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE

The Book of Certitude is not a tafsír in the classical sense. Its exegetical thrust is demonstrative; hence Bahá'u'lláh's own designation of it as an evincive argument (istidlál).¹ Exegesis is a means to an end. In this case, it is a means for realizing the "end of the age."²

Bahá'u'lláh considered his exegetical insights to be universal, applicable to any scripture: "In fact, all the Scriptures and the mysteries thereof are condensed into this brief account."³ By focusing on the author's argumentation itself, the question of which texts are interpreted becomes secondary. Presumably, the techniques Bahá'u'lláh employs to prosecute his exegeses remain the same for both quranic and nonquranic scripture. As we will see, Bahá'u'lláh's longest exegesis is on a biblical text: three verses from the so-called Minor Apocalypse. In the English translation, Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis of Matthew 24:29-31 spans some 57 pages (44 pages in the original Persian), comprising close to⁴ one-fourth of the entire text.

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Rippin offers some insights which certainly apply to The Book of Certitude:

Purpose of Tafsír. Interpretation aims to clarify a text. Tafsír takes as its beginning point the text of the Qur'án, paying full attention to the text itself in order to make its meaning clear. It also functions simultaneously to adapt the text to the present situation of the interpreter. In other words, most interpretation is not purely theoretical; it has a very practical aspect of making the text applicable to the faith and the way of life of the believers. The first of these two interpretive aspects is generally provoked by insoluble problems in meaning, by insufficient detail, by intratextual contradiction, or by unacceptable meanings. Interpretation that fits the text to the situation serves to align it with established social custom, legal positions, and doctrinal assertions.⁵

The adaptive function of tafsír of which Rippin speaks is, in the case of The Book of Certitude, a legitimizing function. The aim of this work is to authenticate the prophetic credentials of the Báb and, beyond him, of the messianic figure whose advent the Báb foretold: "He Whom God Shall Make Manifest." Questions over the imminence of that advent may be answered in historical terms: The messianic advent was considered imminent enough to have invited a flurry of messianic claims. Within the Bábí community there was a heightened eschatological fervor. This tension precipitated a number of pretensions. What Amanat characterizes as "the sense of vigilance for future divine revelations" among the Bábís effectively became "an open invitation for messianic innovation."⁶ On the strength of 'Abdu'l-Bahá as a historical source, we are informed that no less than twentyfive individual Bábís openly advanced claims to be He Whom God Shall Make Manifest (man yuzhiruhu'lláh).⁷

This historical situation minimizes the importance of long-range expectations also set up in the Báb's writings.

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The high incidence of Bábí messianic contenders undercuts any attempt to dismiss the tension generated by short-range expectations.

The revelation of The Book of Certitude was prompted by certain "insoluble problems in meaning" that weighed heavily on the mind of the Báb's uncle, who was faced not with a textual contradiction in scripture as such, but with contradictory views of the eschaton. The most acute source of inner conflict for the Báb's uncle concerned the messianic claim made by his nephew. That claim had little to do with the popular apocalyptic scenario. Like Christ, the Báb was a messianic "scandal" and, by Islamic eschatological standards, a failed messiah. But the Bábí community had the means to rationalize what effectively was a martyred eschaton. Ultimately, it was Bahá'u'lláh who defended the "doctrinal assertions" of the Báb and, in some respects, translated to the less-literate, nonclerical Bábí populace the gist of those assertions.

The Book of Certitude cannot be read without noticing the extraordinary attention Bahá'u'lláh devotes to New Testament apocalyptic. This extensive treatment is remarkable in an Islamic context for its high degree of proportionality relative to quranic exegesis, and for the effective shift in focus to a scripture having little authority for an ordinary Muslim. Bahá'u'lláh's frequent references to the Qur'án and to tradition in his discourse on Matthew 24 tells us much about his Islamic perspective. In fact, this interscriptural approach dominates Part I of the two-part Book of Certitude. Bahá'u'lláh juxtaposes two apocalypses in exegetical dialogue.

THE NEW TESTAMENT AS A
FOIL FOR QURANIC EXEGESIS

Bahá'u'lláh did not take the Wan as his starting point in The Book of Certitude. Rather, his exegetical point of

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departure was New Testament apocalyptic. This exegetical enterprise—an ideal lead-in for approaching the Qur'án later—is the centerpiece of Part I of the text. All this attention paid to a nonquranic scripture serves as a foil from which the subject of quranic interpretation can be developed more neutrally and thus less controversially. The New Testament section of The Book of Certitude also provides insights into Bahá'u'lláh's attitude toward scripture.

For Bahá'u'lláh, since all scripture is revealed from the same Source, exegesis of one by the other is legitimate. Bahá'u'lláh therefore has no compelling reason not to interpret a Christian text by a quranic exemplar. Bahá'u'lláh's biblical/quranic or "interscriptural" exegesis is not unlike the practice of interbiblical. exegesis. This is the single most extensive exegetical device Bahá'u'lláh employs in The Book of Certitude: quranic exegesis by means of New Testament exegesis. It is as if Bahá'u'lláh had anticipated a Christian audience beyond his immediate readership.

Interscriptural exegesis is initially predicated on parallelism:

Gracious God! Notwithstanding the warning which, in marvellously symbolic language (talvihat-i gharib) and subtle allusions (isharat), hath been uttered in days past, and which was intended to awaken the peoples of the world and to prevent them from being deprived of the billowing ocean of God's grace, yet such things as have already been witnessed have come to pass! Reference to these things hath also been made in the Qur'án, as witnessed by this verse: "What can such expect but that God should come down to them overshadowed with clouds?" (Qur ' an 2:210).⁸

Following an extended exordium which recapitulates salvation history up until the advent of Jesus,⁹ Bahá'u'lláh's exegetical point of departure in The Book of Certitude is the problem of the parousia, Christ's Second Coming, in glory.

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Bahá'u'lláh begins with John 14:28 and John 16:7, 12-14 (with an allusion to John 14:16); Matthew 24:29-31; Luke 21:33; Matthew 2:2 and 3:1-2, all of which are either eschatological or adventist in Bahá'u'lláh's presentation. He interprets these verses through reason and appeal to common sense, invoking Qur'án and Shí'í tradition as well. This technique of interscriptural citation permits functional equivalency among biblical, quranic, and traditional texts, all considered non-contradictory as well as validating.

That the Qur'án reinforces Bahá'u'lláh's biblical exegesis is hardly surprising in light of Muslim interpretation in general. As Rippin points out: "Within itself, the Qur'án provides Muslims with a view of the Bible."¹⁰ But Bahá'u'lláh departs radically from one classical Islamic view: that the texts of both Torah and Gospel are corrupt (tahríf). For Bahá'u'lláh's argument, biblical exegesis would be of little avail if the text were suspect. Putative "corruption" of Jewish and Christian scripture was a stock charge in Muslim anti-Jewish/Christian polemics, such charges leveled more often at the Hebrew Bible. Such criticism stems from a literal reading of the quranic charge of tahríf (Qur'án 4:45; 2:75).

Bahá'u'lláh's departure from so stock a Muslim charge would become a mark of Bahá'í doctrinal self-definition:

We have also heard a number of the foolish of the earth assert that the genuine text of the heavenly Gospel doth not exist among the Christians, that it hath ascended unto heaven. How grievously have they erred! How oblivious of the fact that such a statement imputeth the gravest injustice and tyranny to a gracious and loving Providence! How could God, when once the Day-star of the beauty of Jesus had disappeared from the sight of His people, and ascended unto the fourth heaven, cause His holy Book, His most great testimony amongst His creatures, to disappear also?¹¹

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With the quranic accusation, "They pervert the text of the Word of God" (Qur'án 4:45), Bahá'u'lláh fires the arrow back at the archer to indict Muslim clerics with tahríf: "Nay, rather by corruption of the text is meant that in which all Muslim divines are engaged today, that is the interpretation of God's holy Book in accordance with their idle imaginations and vain desires."¹² As a point of interest, Bahá'u'lláh was not alone in this minority opinion. Sayyid Ahmad Khan likewise accepted the integrity of the Christian witness.¹³

It should be pointed out that many of Bahá'u'lláh's interpretations-possibly most-have precedents in Islamic tradition. It is what he does with such interpretations that is powerfully original. Moreover, his themes and overall argument are Islamic in form, but hardly Islamic in their applications. From an orthodox perspective, Bahá'u'lláh's argument against revelatory finality places him well outside of an Islamic worldview. If nothing else, Muslims would surely disavow the implications Bahá'u'lláh draws out of his symbolic exegesis of the Qur'án. After all, how could the Qur'án supersede itself?

JESUS AND COMFORTER

Bahá'u'lláh's first act of exegesis in The Book of Certitude resolves an apparent contradiction in scripture regarding Jesus's Second Coming. To wit, how can Jesus come again, yet send another "Comforter" in his stead? Bahá'u'lláh has identified two distinct traditions behind Jesus' farewell discourse as it relates to the parousia:

He [Jesus] the Revealer of the unseen Beauty . . . referred unto His passing, and, kindling in their hearts the fire of bereavement, said unto them: "I go away and come again unto you." And in another place He said: "I go and Another will come Who will tell you all that I have not told you, and will

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fulfill all that I have said." Both these sayings have but one meanung, were you to ponder the Manifestations of the Unity of God with divine insight.¹⁴

Bahá'u'lláh has identified a possible contradiction in the text. If both statements are true, two advents would be expected: the return of Jesus and the advent of the second Comforter. Without reading too much into Bahá'u'lláh's analysis, his formulation of the textual problem does appear to be an original argument in Islamic circles. Be this as it may, it does anticipate critical questions raised in modern biblical scholarship. Windisch and others have discerned two distinct and incompatible traditions embedded in Jesus' "Farewell Discourse" (John 14-17): (1) the promise of the returning Son (John 14:28) and (2) the promise of the Comforter (John 14:16).¹⁵

In his 1927 monograph on the Comforter (or Paraclete) sayings.¹⁶ Windisch took the position that the promise of the Paraclete and the promise of the returning Son were incommensurate. To resolve this problem, Windisch pursued a literary-critical solution, concluding that the Paraclete sayings were secondary.¹⁷ Windisch drew attention to the fact that the Paraclete represents a successor to Jesus, one who takes the place of Jesus following inevitable martyrdom. Windisch believes that Jesus' last act on behalf of the disciples was "to provide a successor."¹⁸

The Paraclete promise is therefore incompatible with the Second Coming of Jesus, except insofar as it has been tc Mystically reinterpreted" at John 14:18ff.¹⁹ The Paraclete, according to Windisch, is the virtual "double" of Christ with respect to function, and both figures function as prophets. The extensive functional parallelism between Christ and Paraclete has also been noted by Isaacs, who systematicallY develops the extended parallel.²⁰ Are the two figures identical but manifested in different modalities, or are they two distinct figures?

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The distinction between the two savior figures originates nominally with the appellative, "another Comforter. "²¹ Jesus is referred to as a "parákletos" in 1 John 2:1 (albeit in a juridical sense). Reflexive evidence is interesting, for, as Riesenfeld has pointed out, currents in early Christian circles continued to look upon Jesus as the "Comforter" despite the identification of the Comforter with the Holy Spirit as reflected in the Gospel of John.²² A further witness occurs in a fragment from the apocryphal Acts of John discovered in one of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, bearing the invocation: "O Jesus, the Comforter" (POxy 850, verso 10).²³ Jesus must have been the one originally invoked as Comforter, rather than the Holy Spirit.

In the final analysis, according to Windisch, in the Paraclete sayings there is "a faint gleam of the succession of two reigns or ages: the reign of Christ comes to an end so that the reign of the Paraclete can commence."²⁴ In the fifth saying, Windisch detects "a sudden glimpse of a thought which ascribes a certain superiority" to the Paraclete.²⁵

Bahá'u'lláh endeavors to resolve, on a higher plane of unity, the problem of the two distinct eschatological figures: the returning Jesus and the "other Comforter." Historically, the relationship between Jesus and the Paraclete was not an Islamic issue as such. But there was considerable interest in the identity of the Paraclete in relation to Muhammad. In the Qur'án, Jesus foretells the coming of Muhammad. The quranic Jesus refers to this future prophet as "Ahmad" (Qur'án 61:6). Ahmad is traditionally regarded as one of the five names of Muhammad (both derive from the same root, HMD). This does not accord with the biblical record. In the Gospel of John, Jesus does not refer to "Ahmad" at all. A contemporary Muslim response is to suggest that the biblical text (esp. John 16:7) had somehow been altered. We shall return to this problem shortly. In an Islamic context, it is significant that Bahá'u'lláh did not opt for this solution.

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"I AM JESUS": THE UNITY OF THE PROPHETS

Without recourse to a tahríf-based approach, Bahá'u'lláh has perceptively discerned the Jesus/Paraclete contradistinction as a conceptual problem rather than textual incongruence. Indeed, his formulation of the problem was probably calculated to pique the interest of the reader. In any event, his resolution of this eschatological dilemma will have far-reaching implications for his prophetology, as well as his interpretation of the Qur'án:

Every discerning observer will recognize that in the Dispensation of the Qur'án both the Book and the Cause of Jesus were confirmed. As to the matter of names, Muhammad, Himself, declared: "I am Jesus." He recognized the truth of the signs, prophecies, and words of Jesus, and testified that they were all of God. In this sense, neither the person of Jesus nor His writings hath differed from that of Muhammad and of His holy Book, inasmuch as both have championed the Cause of God, uttered His praise, and revealed His commandments. Thus it is that Jesus, Himself, declared: "I go away and come again unto you" (John 14:28).²⁶

Bahá'u'lláh's resolution of this apparent scriptural contradiction is predicated on the quranic doctrine of the equality of prophets. Yet he also seems to invoke an Isma'iIi tradition. The tradition Bahá'u'lláh adduces—"I am all the Prophets," and likewise "I am Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus"—allows him to distribute Adam's distinction as the "first of the prophets"²⁷ to every prophet, including Muhammad.²⁸ Conversely, the honorific "Seal of the Prophets" will be relativized to all Manifestations of God.

The "I am Jesus" traditions in Bahá'u'lláh's argument appear to confirm the ubiquitous presence of "crypto-Isma'iIi currents" that Amanat speaks of as circulating in heterodox Shí'í circles. These ideas were also important to Shí'í extremists, most notably Rajab Bursi.²⁹ Ironically, what

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survived as an extremist tradition reflects an early universalist stance toward the prophets (e.g., Qur'án 2:136, 285; 3:84; 4:152, etc.), a worldview that enjoyed a short-lived primacy in Islamic origins. On this classical background, Friedmann observes:

The egalitarian approach toward the prophets did not last long. Islamic tradition soon began to insist that Muhammad was the best of creation and consequently better than any other prophet.... This view could find no less Qur'ánic support than its egalitarian counterpart.... The Muslim scholars of hadíth were aware of the apparent incompatibility of the early egalitarian traditions with utterances that asserted Muhammad's superiority among the prophets with ever-uncreasing certainty and self-confidence. They explained the contradiction by saying that the Prophet had declined a superior status to avoid rivalry with other faiths, to steer clear of disparaging the ancient prophets, or out of modesty. Most of them also suggested that the Prophet had uttered the egalitarian statements before he became aware that he indeed was the best prophet and even the "Lord of the sons of Adam" [sayyid wuld Adam].³⁰

Bahá'u'lláh, far removed from Christian Pentecostal presuppositions and arriving at the traditional Muslim position through another line of argumentation, interprets the Johannine Christ's promise of "another Comforter" as a transparent reference to the future advent of a prophet like unto Jesus, namely Muhammad.³¹ Some background on the Muslim identification of Muhammad with the Paraclete will serve to differentiate Bahá'u'lláh's argument from the prevailing Islamic approach. Inspired by Marracci's conjecture in his seventeenth-century translation of the Qur'án into Latin, the following textual argument has won some notoriety among Muslim apologists: that the promise of the paráklêtos ("advocate," "consoler") at John 14:16 (and parallels) is a corruption of the original word which

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stood behind the text, namely, paraklytos, "illustrious, " "celebrated").³²

Were this proposed emendation tenable, then Jesus could be shown to have foretold the advent of Muhammad, whose name means "excellent" or "illustrious," on the basis of a lexical equivalence between the two names. The identification of the Spirit of Truth with Muhammad was first made by Ibn Ishaq in the earliest extant biography of the Prophet (Sira 1:150, gloss on John 15:23), but independent of any Qur'án-inspired association with the name Ahmad (Qur'án 61:6).³³

By contrast, Bahá'u'lláh's identification of the Paraclete (not named but alluded to in The Book of Certitude 34) with Muhammad is achieved through an argument based on a spiritual (not philological) relationship between Jesus, Paraclete, and Muhammad. For Bahá'u'lláh, identity and distinction are exegetical frames of reference, in which both hold true.

'The argument simply provides an ideological foundation which Islam accepts in principle. Transition from the familiar to the new (vindication of the Báb's prophetic credentials) is part and parcel of Bahá'u'lláh's argument-building. Lest the argument be entirely exegetical, Bahá'u'lláh switches to an appeal to reason. This different tact makes use of an analogy drawn from nature:

Consider the sun. Were it to say now, "I am the sun of yesterday," it would speak the truth. And should it, bearing the sequence of time in mind, claim to be other than that sun, it still would speak the truth. In like manner, if it be said that all the days are but one and the same, it is correct and true. And if it be said, with respect to their particular names and designations, that they differ, that again is true. For though they are the same, yet one doth recognize in each a separate designation, a specific attribute, a particular character. Conceive accordingly the distinction, variation, and unity characteristic of the various Manifestations of holiness, that

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thou mayest comprehend all the allusions made by the Creator of all names and attributes to the mysteries of distinction and unity, and discover the answer to thy question as to why that everlasting Beauty should have, at sundry times, called Himself by different names and titles.³⁵

This analogy serves to strengthen the premise that the prophets of God not only are equal but share an essential identity irrespective of differences in name. This approach is not intended to diminish the status of Muhammad, but it will be used to undermine the cardinal Islamic dogma that no prophet would appear after him. The argument against revelatory finality dominates the whole of The Book of Certitude.

BAHÁ'U'LLÁH'S MINOR APOCALYPSE

Bahá'u'lláh progresses now to the problem of realized eschatology as it relates to the new religious situation created by the appearance of the Báb. Bear in mind that the purpose behind Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis is two-fold: (1) to vindicate the mission of the Báb; and (2) to reorient the Bábí community in anticipation of the Bábí messiah. In so doing, Bahá'u'lláh heightens the eschatological fervor of the Bábís. He piques the short-term messianic prophecies of the Báb, which revolve around the prophetic figure mysteriously referred to as He Whom God Shall Make Manifest" (man yuzhiruhu'lláh), otherwise known as the mustagháth (He Who shall be invoked). But first the pieces of the apocalyptic puzzle have to be put together.

Bahá'u'lláh turns to the problem of eschatological fulfillment. The Minor Apocalypse of Matthew 24 together with the Farewell Discourse of Jesus in John 14-17 are far more explicit about the advent of a messianic figure at the eschaton than is the Qur'án. In fact, the Qur'án is not at all explicit about such a figure. In the absence of direct quranic

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references, Bahá'u'lláh's recourse to Matthew 24:29-31 is all the more advantageous for his development of the theme of progressive revelation. The biblical text reads:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, the moon shall not give its light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet.³⁶

Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis of Matthew 24:29-31 (having no ostensible place in Islamic doctrine) is arguably the most detailed exegesis undertaken in The Book of Certitude, and it is performed at considerable length. The major conceptual sequences of interpretation for this verse can be summarized so: Tribulation refers to spiritual deprivation. The imagery of celestial bodies in apocalyptic discourse aptly befits prophets and saints. Ideally, it can also apply to religious leaders. But this symbolism can be positive or negative, and, in certain cases, literal as well as metaphorical. Historicity apart, Bahá'u'lláh's acceptance of the star of the Magi as literal³⁷ perhaps reflects the interpretive perpetuation of a biblical metaphor taken literally.³⁸

Religious leaders are stars in the heaven of God's religion, but can become spiritually dark and plummet to their demise. Corruption in the sacerdotal order precipitates this fall from grace. By virtue of the lofty position such divines occupy, their fall is of stellar magnitude, and it is to such benighted stars that Jesus refers. These anti-clerical fulrninations, are not simply exegetical. There is a point to all this interpretation. Small wonder that Bahá'u'lláh anticipates

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opposition from the divines of his day, as in the days of Jesus. The parallelism Bahá'u'lláh develops is explicit , entertaining the possibility of a new Jesus or Moses:

And now, take heed, O brother! If such things be revealed in this Dispensation, and such incidents come to pass, at the present time, what would the people do? I swear by Him Who is the true Educator of mankind and the Revealer of the Word of God that the people would instantly and unquestionably pronounce Him an infidel and would sentence Him to death. How far are they from hearkening unto the voice that declareth: Lo! a Jesus hath appeared out of the breath of the Holy Ghost, and a Moses summoned to a divinely-appointed task!³⁹

This is not simply theoretical. From the Bábí perspective, a new Moses or Jesus had indeed appeared, in the person of the Báb. And there befell him the same kind of opposition that afflicted Jesus all the way to the cross. The Báb was executed in 1850. What if another prophetic advent were in the offing? Bahá'u'lláh's transparent allusion to the Báb could easily have doubled as an oblique circumlocution for his own impending messianic advent:

Great God! When the stream of utterance reached this stage, We beheld, and lo! the sweet savours of God were being wafted from the Day-spring of Revelation, and the morning breeze was blowing out of the Sheba of the Eternal.... Upon the anemones of the garden of love It bestoweth the mysteries of truth, and within the breasts of the lovers It entrusteth the symbols of innermost subtleties.

At this hour, so liberal is the outpouring of Its grace that the Holy Spirit itself is envious! . . . So great are the overflowings of Its bounty that the foulest beetle hath sought the perfume of the musk, and the bat the light of the sun. It hath quickened the dead with the breath of life, and caused them to speed out of the sepulchres of their mortal bodies....

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The universe is pregnant with these manifold bounties, awaiting the hour when the effects of Its unseen gifts will be made manifest in this world...

From the garden of whose soul will the blossoms of the invisible realities spring forth? ... Thus have We illuminated the heavens of utterance with the splendours of the Sun of divine wisdom and understanding, that thy heart may find peace, that thou mayest be of those who, on the wings of certitude, have soared unto the heaven of the love of their Lord, the All-Merciful.⁴⁰

Note the abundant use of what Persian rhetoric calls the "metaphorical" genitive (idafay-i isti'ári).⁴¹ The idáfa is a particle—an enclitic, to be precise—used for possessive, descriptive, and partitive purposes. Bahá'u'lláh's use of this construct becomes an important exegetical device. Why? Because he interprets a verse in a certain way, explicating a symbol by suggesting its referent. He then uses both symbol and referent together, bound grammatically by the Persian metaphorical genitive, to reinforce his exegesis.

How does this work in The Book of Certitude? Take, for example, Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis of "earth." In Bahá'u'lláh's citation of Matthew 24:29, the variant of "earth" occurs in place of "heaven" found in the received text: "Immediately after the oppression of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the powers of the earth shall be shaken."⁴² Notwithstanding, reference to the earth in this apocaIYPtic context is thematically supported by Isaiah 13:10, 13 (which appears to stand behind this verse), Joel 2:10, 30-31; 3:15-16, and Luke 21:25. Here, then, is Bahá'u'lláh's interpretation of eschatological "earth":

In like manner, endeavour to comprehend the meaning of the 4C changing of the earth." Know thou, that upon whatever hearts the bountiful showers of mercy, raining from the "heaven" of divine Revelation, have fallen, the earth of those hearts hath

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verily been changed into the earth of divine knowledge and wisdom. What myrtles of unity hath the soil of their hearts produced! What blossoms of true knowledge and wisdom hath their illumined bosoms yielded! ... Thus hath He said: "On the day when the earth shall be changed into another earth." (Qur'án 14:48.)⁴³

Bahá'u'lláh coordinates his various explications by means of extended metaphors. The sun, responsible for all life on earth, is the perfect metaphor for the source of spiritual guidance or "life." The pastoral imagery of Jesus' parables functioned in much the same way. Further on, Bahá'u'lláh cites the eschatological verse al-Zamakhshari (d. 1144 C.E.) had analyzed as the incidence of takhyil (imagery to convey the abstract):

And now, comprehend the meaning of this verse: "The whole earth shall on the Resurrection Day be but His handful, and in His right hand shall the heavens be folded together. Praise be to Him! and high be He lifted above the partners they join with Him!" (Qur'án 39:67). And now, be fair in thy judgment. Were this verse to have the meaning which men suppose it to have, of what profit, one may ask, could it be to man? Moreover, it is evident and manifest that no such hand as could be seen by human eye could accomplish such deeds, or could possibly be ascribed to the exalted Essence of the one true God!

Nay, to acknowledge such a thing is naught but sheer blasphemy, an utter perversion of the truth. And should it be supposed that by this verse are meant the Manifestations of God, Who will be called upon, on the Day of Judgment, to perform such deeds, this too seemeth far from the truth. On the contrary, by the term "earth" is meant the earth of understanding and knowledge, and by "heavens" the heavens of divine Revelation. Reflect thou, how, on one hand, He hath, by His mighty grasp, turned the earth of knowledge and understanding, previously unfolded, into a mere handful, and, on the other, spread out a new and highly exalted earth in the hearts of men, thus causing the freshest and loveliest blossoms

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to spring forth from the illumined bosom of man. In like manner, reflect how the elevated heavens of the Dispensations of the past have, in the right hand of power, been folded together, how the heavens of divine Revelation have been raised by the command of God, and have been adorned by the sun, the moon, and stars of His wondrous commandments. Such are the mysteries of the Word of God, which have been unveiled and made manifest.⁴⁴

This passage is quoted at length to give a fair impres sion of the kind of argumentation Bahá'u'lláh employs in the course of his exegesis. Rather than appeal to the au thority of a classical tafsír, Bahá'u'lláh argues by an appeal to absurdity. In ruling out the plausibility of a literal reading of this verse, "earth" now becomes a symbol. Bahá'u'lláh's explication of it as the ground of consciousness—the good earth yielding spiritual verdure—is more plausible within the extended nature metaphor Bahá'u'lláh uses.⁴⁵

Note again Bahá'u'lláh's stylistic use of the metaphorical genitive in order subtly to reinforce his exegesis. Eschatological "earth"—in a variant saying of Jesus—has come to mean knowledge, understanding, and, generally, the capacity of the human heart. This line of interpretation underlies Bahá'u'lláh's references to inner spiritual gardens. The Persian literary tradition is rich in such imagery.⁴⁶

In a passage that is likely reflexive, Bahá'u'lláh appears to intimate the imminence of his own revelation:

The universe is pregnant with these manifold bounties, awaiting the hour when the effects of Its unseen gifts will be made manifest in this world.... In the soil of whose heart will these holy seeds germinate? From the garden of whose soul will the blossoms of the invisible realities spring forth? Verily, I say, so fierce is the blaze of the Bush of love, burning in the Sinai of the heart, that the streaming waters of holy utterance can never quench its flame. Oceans can never allay this Leviathan's

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burning thirst, and this Phoenix of the undying fire can abide nowhere save in the glow of the countenance of the Well-Beloved.

Therefore, O brother! kindle with the oil of wisdom the lamp of the spirit within the innermost chamber of thy heart, and guard it with the globe of understanding, that the breath of the infidel may extinguish not its flame nor dim its brightness. Thus have We illumined the heavens of utterance with the splendours of the Sun of divine wisdom and understanding, that thy heart might find peace, that thou mayest be of those who, on the wings of certitude, have soared unto the heaven of the love of their Lord, the All-Merciful.⁴⁷

The abundance of metaphorical genitives in this passage is self-evident. Each relates, directly or indirectly, to a given interpretation in The Book of Certitude.

To recapitulate, the interpretive point of departure in The Book of Certitude is exegesis of New Testament apocalyptic as a foil for the quranic exegesis pursued throughout the rest of the book. The textual integrity of the Paraclete sayings as well as Jesus' apocalyptic discourse at Matthew 24:29-31 is defended against Muslim charges of corruption (tahríf). Bahá'u'lláh then takes recourse to "interscriptural exegesis" (interpretation of the New Testament by the Qur'án and vice versa). Bahá'u'lláh adduces Qur'án 55:5⁴⁸ and 70:40⁴⁹ to expound the significance of the eschatological sun and moon to which Jesus refers.

Moreover, Qur'án 82:1⁵⁰ and 39:67⁵¹ are cited and explicated, and the interpretation transferred to Matthew 24, as is Qur'án 51:22⁵² on the meaning of "heaven." As to the significance of eschatological "clouds,". Qur'án 2:87⁵³ , 25:25⁵⁴ , and 25:7⁵⁵ are adduced. It would appear that Bahá'u'lláh's interpretive procedures involve what Fishbane refers to as "those hermeneutical strategies whereby meaning is produced for a given text."⁵⁶

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THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE BOOK OF
CERTITUDE TO SHI'I TAFSÍR

Embedded in Bahá'u'lláh's discourse are specifically Shí'í technical terms, traditions, and techniques of exegesis. This section will address the question of precedent: To what extent is The Book of Certitude prefigured by Shí'í tafsír? The answer is clear: The principles of exegesis found in Akhbari (Imámi tradition-based) Shí'í tafsír are manifestly present in the Kitáb-i Íqán. These principles have more to do with the subject of exegesis than with its procedures. The interpretive strategies in Bahá'u'lláh's work are amply attested in the classical Sunni heritage, which has permeated the Shí'í domain. The branch, after all, stems from the trunk. Both are fed by the same roots.

There are sufficient formal similarities and thematic emphases between later Shí'í (those known as Akhbari) works of tafsír and The Book of Certitude to warrant comparison. Such a study would present itself as the logical starting place for a foundational study of Bahá'u'lláh's work. To treat simply the Shí'í context of the text is too narrow, however. The pitfall of such a reductionist approach is that the presence of identifiable Shí'í features of exegesis in the text can elucidate, but cannot "explain," the event of The Book of Certitude purely in terms of a natural extension or development of Shí'í tradition. The same exegetical agenda demonstrating the quranic basis of the authority of the Twelve Shí'í Imams-is invoked by Bahá'u'lláh not to validate Shí'í tradition but to effect a break from that tradition.

A paradox of authority surfaces in the structure of Bahá'u'lláh's argument: the authority of the institution of the Imamate is confirmed, but not, as it were, the "apostolic succession"—to use a Christian term—that derives from it. Bahá'u'lláh's critique of contemporary Shí'í authority is more than "protestant." It is tantamount to a shared Shí'í concern over authority, but a reversal of its legitimation as invested in

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the clerical order of his day. The exegetical aims are parallel. But they clash. Bahá'í and Sllfi authority claims are at cross purposes. The former subordinates the latter.

Thematically, and in good Shí'í fashion, concern over authority is of paramount interest in The Book of Certitude. This is thoroughly Shí'í. One must not be seduced by the continuity, however. While Bahá'u'lláh's conception of spiritual authority presupposes Shí'í structures, to regard The Book of Certitude as simply an extension of Shí'í thought is to turn a blind eye to Bahá'u'lláh's doctrinal revolution the overruling of Shí'í constraints on authority in favor of a new locus of authority: a post-quranic revelation. The figures of the Báb himself and the Bábí messiah ubiquitously anticipated in the Báb's writings represent in effect two new claims to revelation and the theoretical dissolution of Shí'í ulama. To make matters worse, from a Shí'í perspective, there is a decidedly anti-clerical strain in the works of both the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh.

Two images of Shí'ísm in Bahá'u'lláh's discourse thus emerge. The first is historical and doctrinal. It is nostalgic and purist. The Imams are revered. Various traditions ascribed to them are adduced as proof texts. In The Book of Certitude, the frequency of Bahá'u'lláh's recourse to imámi akhbar is second only to his appeals to the Qur'án. This is a patently Akhbari procedure. The second picture of Shí'ísm Bahá'u'lláh portrays is one of its perceived failings, particularly in its contemporary (nineteenth-century) setting.

Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis may be characterized as polemically anti-Shí'í, but explicitly pro-'Ali. This critique of Shí'ísm is not revisionist. There is no agenda for restoring Shí'ísm to its pristine state. It would appear that in Bahá'u'lláh's view of salvation history, Shí'ísm had run its course. Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis may be overstated as a kind of counter-Shí'ísm, due to the rivalry of authority claims. Since a break from the past had already been effected by the Báb

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in both the Arabic and Persian Bayán, The Book of Certitude may be seen as a development of Bábí "revelation" beyond the renewal of Shí'ísm. Where, one might ask, is there precedent in Shí'í exegetical tradition for Bahá'u'lláh's supersedure of the assumed finality of "Seal of the Prophets" (Quran 33:40) by the eschatological certainty of encountering God (Qur'án 33:44)? Here, the singlemost crucial prophetological verse in the Qur'án is overruled, in Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis, by another verse just four verses later in the same sura. This latter verse is glossed as the refraction of beatific vision realized in the "Manifestation of God" who is the eschatological "God" by proxy, even as Moses was said to be "as God unto Pharaoh." Such an exegesis is not to be found in Twelver Shí'í tafsír. The stark nature of this contrast, far from discouraging comparison, invites further comparison.

A recent study by Lawson has contributed to Western understanding of the principles of Shí'í exegesis. Bahá'u'lláh's argument against revelatory finality finds no precedent in Shí'ísm. But The Book of Certitude represents, from a certain perspective, a clear development of existing Shí'í tendencies, which Lawson has brought to light. It is now possible to explain, in retrospect, how it was theoretically conceivable for a new authority claim to be asserted without appearing to usurp the authority of the Qur'án. Such a procedure was effected through Akhbari exegesis, in which the exegesis, invoking the authority of sacred Imami tradition, functionally supersedes the text it is intended to elucidate.⁵⁷

Discussions of Shí'ísm run the risk of certain biases of selectivity, of interpretation and of weight in terms of emphasis. Systematization is a well-intentioned structure, but one nevertheless imposed. The methodological elegance of Lawson's study is that he has presented representative, traditionally acclaimed systematizations of Shí'í thought by Shí'í authorities themselves. These systematizations,

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propounded in the tafsír prologues, are illuminating. These native programmatic statements reveal the extent to which Akhbari interpretations of the Qur'án are characteristically Imamocentric. In such commentaries, Imami reports are not so much used to explain the Qur'án (this is the formal procedure) as the Qur'án is used to legitimate a Shí'í agenda. In any case, the Qur'án effectively becomes a Shí'í text.

This systematization of Akhbari exegetical principles illuminates the immediate context of The Book of Certitude. Lawson's study has made it possible to explain The Book of Certitude as representing, in effect, the logical trajectory of Shí'í exegetical tendencies, which are ultimately, if carried to their logical conclusion, self-transcending. This trajectory depends entirely on the reader's theoretical acceptance of one crucial substitution: the authority of the Báb (in the shadow of whose authority stands Bahá'u'lláh) as the eclipse of the traditional authorities: Qur'án and Imami tradition, Prophet and Imam. The revelation of the Báb constitutes the new locus of spiritual authority, an authority transfer cast in terms of eschatological prerogative and legitimated in terms of prophetic "fulfillment."

Arguably, the most salient feature of Akhbari Shí'í interpretations of the Qur'án is how such commentaries reflect on issues of authority. All of Islam revolves around notions of authority: guidance, the Path, the Caliphate, pedagogy, etc. In Shí'í Islam, the Imamate is paramount. According to Lawson, what characterizes Akhbari Qur'án commentaries is the exegetical procedure of "finding the true reading of the verse in question through metonomy or metaphor for the Imam or some related topic such as walaya [inspired guidancel."⁵⁸ In its various manifestations throughout Islamic history, Shí'ísm, from its inception, has always been predicated on various conceptions of authority. Twelver Shí'ísm, the dominant form of Shí'ísm today, views spiritual authority as vested in the Imamate. The very identity of

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Shí'ísm is bound up with authority claims. Shí'í assertions of authority explicitly contest rival Sunni claims. The Qur'án, tradition (hadith), and especially the Imami oral legacy are invoked for legitimation. The selective and tendentious use of such authorities is meant to validate what Sunni Islam rejects.

The Book of Certitude shares similar concerns, but looks ahead in time to a post-quranic and post-imamite Dispensation. Bahá'u'lláh's emphasis on authority is equal to Shí'í concerns. Such concerns preoccupied the immediate audience at least. This agenda had to be addressed in order to facilitate a transfer of spiritual authority, mediated by faith—a transfer from Shí'í institutions to a new source of charisma—the Báb. The revelation of the Báb had made explicit what was for the most part implicit in Shí'í visions of the end. Through the Báb, a new eschatological landscape was outspread, canopied by a new heaven of faith.

Bahá'u'lláh effects what might be considered the thematic inversion of Shff hermeneutics through a stated continuity expressed as "fulfillment." Such fulfillment is tantamount to abrogation, however. In The Book of Certitude, Shí'í exegetical principles are invoked to counter Shí'í authority, though formally it appears otherwise. This is the subtlety of Bahá'u'lláh's argument.

The Book of Certitude reinforces the Shí'í view of the Qur'án, that it has a symbolic dimension that only an inspired interpreter might accurately demystify. In Akhbaari Shí'ísm , the Qur'án as a text is functionally inseparable from its valid interpretation. Although interpretation is still a human enterprise, the guarantor of accuracy is reliance upon traditions ascribed to the Imams. In this respect, the sacred text is imbued with the charisma of both the Prophet and the Imams. "Because of the fusion of the Im,am and text," Lawson observes, "the Qur'án is experienced as a charismatic text" and as "encounter."⁵⁹

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In the case of Bahá'u'lláh's immediate precursor, the Báb, this tendency became even more pronounced. Lawson remarks: "We see the 'logical' culmination of this process in the Qur'án commentaries of the Báb (d. 1850), who depended heavily on the akhbar [Imami traditions] in his early tafsír, but appears to have abandoned their explicit use in later similar works. In this later phase of commentary, it is virtually impossible to distinguish between commentary, text, reader, God, Prophet, and Imam. In short, the exegetical act became scripture."⁶⁰ From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that the principles of Shí'í hermeneutics do indeed inform The Book of Certitude. The supplanting of Sunni authority by Shí'í sources and their extensive, even dominant use in exegesis had, in a sense, paved the way for innovative authority claims initially posing as commentary.

Phenomenologically speaking, revelation is somewhat tradition-bound. To communicate within the constraints of context, the exercise of ingenuity and subtlety becomes a necessary transitional preliminary before any open arrogation of fresh authority is possible. Procedurally, Bahá'u'lláh followed one with the other. Exegesis, as performed in The Book of Certitude along some very traditional Akhbari lines, was followed by proclamation. This sequence is what characterized the birth of a new world religion, which at once had to speak to Islamic tradition and yet effect a break from it.

TAFSÍR-RELATED STYLISTIC FEATURES
OF THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE

A word should be said as to the prosaic style of The Book of Certitude, and what purpose such a style might serve. Bahá'u'lláh's writings strike many Western readers as flowery. Such embellishments often are seen as unnecessary and distracting, or worse. Orientalist Allesandro Bausani has remarked on some of the difficulties raised by "the Bahá'í

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expressive style" for those unfamiliar with it. According to Bausani: "The difficulty that Westerners experience in fully understanding the style of the Bahá'í writings lies in our having lost the living sense of the tripartition of reality: Unknowable God, World of Symbols, material world."⁶¹ Momen has shown the ontological reality behind Bahá'í symbolism. Bahá'í metaphysics does postulate such a "World of Symbols," as Bausani has indicated. Bahá'u'lláh, in a Tablet known as the Lawh-i Varqá, states:

The meaning of the Kingdom (malakut) in its primary sense and degree is the scene of transcendent glory. In another sense it is the world of similitudes ('alam-i mithal) which existeth between the Dominion on high (jabarut) and this mortal realm (nasut); whatever is in the heavens or on the earth hath its counterpart in that world.⁶²

This much is implicit throughout The Book of Certitude: There exists a law of correspondences between the physical and spiritual worlds. 'What else would scriptural symbols represent? The presence of the spiritual dimension in this life is what religious symbols, after all, try to evoke.

As early in the book as the exordium-before any actual exegesis is engaged in-Bahá'u'lláh's description of the mission of Moses is implicitly exegetical, setting up an expectation of the approach Bahá'u'lláh will later take:

...there came the turn of Moses. Armed with the rod of celestial dominion ('asay-i amr), adorned with the white hand of knowledge (bayday-i marifat), and proceeding from the Paran of the love of God (faran-i muhabbat-i ilahiyya), and wielding the serpent of power and everlasting tnajesty (thu'ban-i qudrat wa shawkat-i samaddaniyya), He shone forth from the Sinai of light (sinay-i núr) upon the world. He summoned all the peoples and kindreds of the earth to the kingdom of eternity, and invited them to partake of the fruit of the tree of faithfulness.⁶³

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Symbolism arises from a common poetic stock, expressed in a metaphorical view of reality. Figurative language and ideology are often linked in historical texts.⁶⁴ This relationship is even more pronounced in the case of "salvation history," which designation fits The Book of Certitude quite well. Salvation history is a view, not of the past, but of the present. Henry Corbin, in one of his useful overstatements, observes: "Hence, the ta'wíl is preeminently the hermeneutics of symbols.... Ta'wíl presupposes the superimposition of worlds and interworlds, as the correlative basis for a plurality of meanings in the same text."⁶⁵

WANSBROUGH'S TAFSÍR TYPOLOGY

Adopting a particular methodology involves a choice between adapting an existing one to the research at hand or creating a new one. I have opted for the former. The framework of analysis chosen for this book is the tafsír typology developed by John Wansbrough. His elaboration of classical exegesis of the Qur'án is theoretically elegant, testable, and predictive.

On methodological grounds alone, Wansbrough has contributed much to our understanding of tafsír by proposing a critical assessment of Qur'án commentaries. He advocates a literary analysis⁶⁶ of revelation as well, freeing both Qur'án and tradition from their splendid theological isolation. Wansbrough proposes two types of criteria in his study of tafsír: (1) functional criteria; and (2) stylistic criteria. By "concentrating on the elements of explication both in and out of context," Wansbrough hopes to "isolate and identify methodological devices which can be recognized."⁶⁷ These stylistic devices act as criteria for analysis of the dynamics of exegesis within functional types of tafsír. The presence and distribution of these "methodological devices" (more often termed "procedural devices") are claimed to be "mutually

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corroborative."⁶⁸ It could prove productive, perhaps illuminating, to apply this framework of analysis to The Book of Certitude, bearing in mind that procedural devices are each "potentially variable but not beyond recognition."⁶⁹ As in Wansbrough's own study, the functional and stylistic analysis of Bahá'u'lláh's Qur'án commentary pursued in the present monograph is essentially an "experiment."⁷⁰

Wansbrough has classified classical tafsír into five types. which roughly follow a chronological sequence of dev'eiop, ment of increasing sophistication: Narrative, Legal, Textual, Rhetorical, and Symbolic/Allegorical. Of this literary taxonomy, Rippin writes: "While the historical sequence itself may be open to some debate, the categorization itself is, in true scientific fashion, functional, unified, and revealing."⁷¹ These categories are comprehensive, but do not constitute the total typology. They represent the domains across which Islamic hermeneutics spread its wings. What makes these categories come to life are the exegetical dynamics that ensoul them. Thus, Wansbrough's typology consists of five tafsír types and twelve procedural devices: i.e. "the twelve explicative elements proposed as criteria for a descriptive analysis of exegetical literature. "⁷²

Wansbrough's identification of these explicative elements offers a literary framework of analysis for any given work of tafsír, isolating its major interpretive components. The number and distribution of each of these techniques within a given text should tell us more precisely what the exegete is doing with his material, and should add to our understanding of what makes up a particular exegetical type.

All but two of Wansbrough's procedural devices were employed by Bahá'u'lláh in the Kitáb-i Íqán. The two absent are: variant readings and poetic exemplars (save for a single citation of poetry, rather for exclamatory than for exegetical purposes). The absence of variant readings indicates something of Bahá'u'lláh's attitude towards the Qur'án:

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The text is not only sacred, but fixed--that is, fixed within canonical limits, not interpretive ones. This clearly reflects nineteenth-century Muslim attitudes to the text: the Qur'án is intact as given, the text taken for granted as received. The question of Bahá'u'lláh's alleged inexact Qur'án citations will be addressed briefly, but will be dismissed as referential and not as alternate readings for exegetical purposes.

Using Wansbrough's typology as a framework of analysis for study of The Book of Certitude, it is not my intent to present Bahá'u'lláh as an Islamic scholastic or as a formal Qur'án commentator in the classical sense. Indeed, the analysis given might strike the reader as somewhat disjointed. This was inevitable, in attempting to break down a text into its explicative procedures. The examplars adduced are, for the most part, wrenched out of sequence and atomized; but they are, at the same time, framed in exegetical theory.

Even so, using Wansbrough's model, The Book of Certitude is more effectively presented for its unity of argument, sustained at every turn through recourse to a variety of procedural devices, the use of which alone reflects the cumulative nature of the Islamic exegetical heritage in which Bahá'u'lláh stood. In his ostensibly Islamic argument, Bahá'u'lláh develops a paradox of world historical proportions: If the Qur'án is shown to have presaged a future revelation, such exegesis carries an implicit challenge to the authority of Islam in the wake of the dual claims advanced by the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh.

PROCEDURAL DEVICES IN THE BOOK OF CERTITUDE

We will now take a closer look at the ways in which Bahá'u'lláh interprets the Qur'án. His methods will not correspond, in every instance, to what Wansbrough has identified as interpretive mechanisms, but approximations are

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as useful as they are illustrative. I will argue that a consistent approach to interpretation in The Book of Certitude may be discerned: As a first-level premise, Bahá'u'lláh argues that eschatological discourse is figurative. In the Qur'án, Bahá'u'lláh reads such figurative eschatological discourse as functionally symbolic. Symbolic value depends on the representational quality of such discourse, which the reader is taught to recognize as nonliteral.

Bahá'u'lláh offers rhetorical explanations, enabling the reader first to recognize figurative discourse. The interpretation of symbols depends on this underlying view of text and its use of representational language. The recognition of symbols, which are often unmarked for figurative discourse, is context-dependent, interpreted through a law of correspondence. Such correlativity has in view an ontologically higher reality, or at least a psychologically deeper worldview. The dynamic between figure and symbol, then, is foundational to the overall argument which The Book of Certitude presents: that is, that post-quranic revelation is possible, predicted, and present in the world today.

A word should be said about the general Islamic style of argumentation which Bahá'u'lláh stood to inherit. Bahá'u'lláh's analysis and exegesis of selected quranic texts is accomplished primarily by analogy and appeal to tradition. Moreover, Bahá'u'lláh's approach exhibits what might be called an exercise in philosophical aesthetics, as applied to revelation. Kemal defines aesthetics in classical Arabic literary criticism as "a concern with characterising the nature of the poetic discourse generally, . . . through displaying how ... poetic and aesthetic discourse works."⁷³

In The Book of Certitude, Bahá'u'lláh's aesthetic appreciation of the Qur'án is bound up with his appreciation of its wealth of figurative expression. Despite his argument for post-quranic revelation, Bahá'u'lláh's reverence for the Qur'án should never go unheeded. There are several explicit

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appreciations of the Qur'án in The Book of Certitude, one of which extols the holy book so:

He, the divine King, hath proclaimed the undisputed supremacy of the verses of His Book [the Qur'án] over all things that testify to His truth. For compared with all other proofs and tokens, the divinely-revealed verses shine as the sun, whilst all others are as stars. To the peoples of the world they are the abiding testimony, the incontrovertible proof, the shining light of the ideal King.

Their excellence is unrivalled, their virtue nothing can surpass. They are the treasury of the divine pearls and the depository of the divine mysteries.... Through them floweth the river of divine knowledge, and gloweth the fire of His ancient and consummate wisdom. ⁷⁴

Beyond aesthetics is interpretation proper, the act of exegesis. Bahá'u'lláh states his purpose quite simply: "All these things which We have cited from divers sources, have no other purpose but to enable thee to grasp the meaning of the allusions in the utterances of the chosen Ones of God."⁷⁵ In the course of his exegeses, interpretation is mostly predicated on the nonliteral nature of eschatological texts. While Bahá'u'lláh was no literary theorist, I think the conceptions underlying his approach to the text are as literary as they are theological. Younger sums up the nature of figurative language as it applies to biblical texts. His statement seems to apply with equal validity to quranic figuration and its symbolic possibilities:

Thus, in figurative language there is, of course, a stratification of meaning, in which an incongruity of sense on one level produces an influx of significance on another.... The power of metaphor derives precisely from the interplay between discordant meanings it symbolically coerces into a unitary conceptual framework and from the degree to which that coercion is successful in overcoming the psychic resistance such

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semantic tension inevitably generates in anyone in a position to perceive it.⁷⁶

Wansbrough's stylistic criteria, or "procedural devices," will be presented in the order in which he treats them. Though somewhat arbitrary, this is illustrative for our purposes. Bear in mind that this methodological framework is being imposed on Bahá'u'lláh's work for purposes of analysis, and that this framework formed no part of the author's conscious enterprise. Bahá'u'lláh was not a scholar. He had no clerical background. He received the rather unsophisticated traditional education of the nobility. This involved private instruction in Qur'án and tradition.

Far more important are Bahá'u'lláh's mystical experiences, which gave rise to a sense of divine election, continually reinforced throughout his forty-year ministry by a remarkable ability to "reveal" a wealth of Tablets, all of which came to have a status that, for Bahá'ís, collectively superseded the authority of the Qur'án. Bahá'u'lláh displays an awareness of some important tafsír-related issues, in discussions of debated topics in Islam as well as in his occasional references to Qur'án commentators, not by name but rather by argument.⁷⁷

VARIAE LECTIONES

Nowhere in The Book of Certitude does Bahá'u'lláh exPlicate the Qur'án by adducing variant readings. His attitude toward the canonical text seems to preclude this approach. His orientation toward canonical authenticity completely ignores some of the traditional Shí'í misgivings over critical parts of scripture.⁷⁸

In Chapter Two, evidence was presented documenting Bahá'u'lláh's own instructions to bring all Qur'án citations in The Book of Certitude into alignment with the standard

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text of the Qur'án. This was because, in the original Bombay lithograph of The Book of Certitude, citations of the Qur'án were inexact paraphrases. Critics of the Bahá'í Faith questioned the integrity of The Book of Certitude as a "revealed" text, because revelation cannot admit of error.

Whether paraphrase or error, the inexact citations are not exegetically intrusive. Such imprecisions are slight and likely represent a paraphrasing from memory. Inexact references to the Qur'án are referential and not text-critical. The reader recognizes the verse, gets the exegetical point, and the inexact citation serves its purpose. Jeffery's remarks on variants to the opening sura of the Qur'án which he encountered in Cairo as well as in Shí'í circles apply with equal (albeit unintended) validity to the inexact Qur'án citations in The Book of Certitude:

There is no ascertainable reason for the variant readings. They are not alterations in the interests of smoother grammatical construction or of clarity, nor do they seem to have any doctrinal significance. They are just variants as one might expect in the transmission of a prayer at first preserved in oral form.⁷⁹

Bahá'u'lláh's respect for the sacred text is very explicit:

For instance, the Qur'án was an impregnable stronghold unto the people of Muhammad. In His days, whosoever entered therein, was shielded from the devilish assaults, the menacing darts, the self-devouring doubts, and blasphemous whisperings of the enemy. Upon him [the believer] was also bestowed a portion of the everlasting and goodly fruits-the fruits of wisdom, from the divine Tree. To him was given to drink the incorruptible waters of the river of knowledge, and to taste the wine of the mysteries of divine Unity.

All the things that the people required in connection with the Revelation of Muhammad and His laws were found to be revealed and manifest in that Ridvan of resplendent glory.

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That Book constitutes an abiding testimony to its people after Muhammad, inasmuch as its decrees are indisputable, and its promise unfailing. All have been enjoined to follow the precepts of that Book until "the year sixty" [1260 A.H.]—the year of the advent of God's wondrous Manifestation [the Báb].⁸⁰

One might question how far Bahá'u'lláh's respect for the Qur'án went if he believed the text was already abrogated by the revelation of the Báb. But, this likely has no bearing on how Bahá'u'lláh regarded the integrity of the text itself. Unlike some strains of Shí'í tradition that have called into question whether the Qur'án is even complete—the standard edition of 'Uthman having allegedly suppressed passages favorable to 'Ali—Bahá'u'lláh takes no issue with the text itself. Its interpretation, as we shall see in some detail, is an entirely different matter.

POETIC LOCI PROBANTES

In adapting Wansbrough's categories to a text which performs exegesis yet is not a tafsír in the classical sense, some conceptual modifications are necessary to fit the text to the methodology intended to elucidate it. In the classical tradition, those exemplars adduced from the corpus of principally "pre-islamic" poetry by literary theorists "eager to illustrate their rhetorical figures" are termed in Arabic: shawáhid. The technical equivalent in Western literary theory is poetic loci probantes.⁸¹ There is one instance in The Book of Certitude in which Bahá'u'lláh does adduce poetry. Shoghi Effendi renders this verse: "Marvel not if in the Qur'án the unbeliever perceiveth naught but the trace of letters, for in the sun, the blind findeth naught but heat."⁸² For comparison, in the first English translation of the Kitab-i-Íqán, Khan sets apart the poetic citation so:

'ajab nabud kih az Quran nasíbí nist juz naqshi,
kih az khurshid juz garmi nayabad chashm-i nabina⁸³

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Be not astonished if from the Koran no portion is gained except its letters,
For in the sun, the eye of the blind findeth nothing but heat.⁸⁴

These two translations do not differ significantly, except that Khan has set off the citation of poetry by presenting it formally as verse. This verse is exclamatory, reinforcing Bahá'u'lláh's reiterative argument against literalist interpretation of quranic passages in which deeper meaning resides. The provenance of this piece of poetry is itself unclear. No citation formula is given. It is possible that Bahá'u'lláh has cited from his own mystical poetry (much of it no longer extant) but the verse here has a very traditional ring.

With respect to his writings in general, Bahá'u'lláh is not inclined to adduce poetry often, except in his Sufi-oriented mystical works. Yet he does draw attention to some of the obviously poetic quranic passages when illustrating figuration and symbolism. That is not to say that the Qur'án itself is poetry: Bahá'u'lláh, as with Muslims universally, would never draw such equivalence.

There is an implicit motive for citing this couplet, beyond its presence as an intensifier. Bahá'u'lláh has just cited several quranic verses dealing with the rejection of revelation (Qur'án 2:23; 45:5; 45:6; 45:8; 26:187; 8:32) and draws what for him is the obvious parallel to his own historical present. The revelation of the Báb had, of course, been rejected by the vast majority of the Shí'ís of his day. The rejection was extreme in the case of the divines, many of whom conspired with the state to persecute and exterminate the Bábí community.

Bahá'u'lláh was critical of contemporary Shí'í leaders, whom he typologically finds condemned by the Qur'án as possessed of the same hard-heartedness as the disbelievers of yore: "These people," writes Bahá'u'lláh, ". . . sought to exchange the divinely-revealed verses for their foul, their vile, and idle desires."⁸⁵ Bahá'u'lláh does not mean the

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"exchange" of quranic verses, though a cursory reading of the passage might not reveal this. He has in view the Shí'í rejection of the so-called "Bábí Qur'án." "Although the seas of life ... are surging within the Ridvan of the heart, yet these people ... [have] contented themselves with the stagnant waters of a briny lake."⁸⁶ This rejection of the Báb's revelation, according to Bahá'u'lláh, is actuated by spiritual blindness:

Gracious God! How strange the way of this peoplel They clamour for guidance, although the standards of Him Who guideth all things are already hoisted. They cleave to the obscure intricacies of knowledge, when He, Who is the Object of all knowledge, shineth as the sun. They see the sun with their own eyes, and yet question that brilliant Orb as to the proof of its light.... Yea, the blind can perceive naught from the sun except its heat, and the and soil hath no share of the showers of mercy. "Marvel not if in the Qur'án the unbeliever perceiveth naught but the trace of letters, for in the sun, the blind findeth naught but heat."⁸⁷

The verse citation concerns the Qur'án, but Bahá'u'lláh makes its rejection motif double for rejection of the Báb's revelation, and, perhaps allusively, his own. The Báb is clearly intended as the subject of this passage. This reading might be strengthened by the possible allusion to the term "Mahdi" in the statement, "They clamour for guidance," since the Mahdi is the "Rightly-Guided" One. But it is hard to suppress the reading that Bahá'u'lláh is speaking reflexively of himself, in a highly allusive way, and that the Qur'án (in the verse cited) is his own revelation.

LEXICAL EXPLANATION⁸⁸

(1) "Oppression": In the first part of this chapter, we discussed Bahá'u'lláh's treatment of New Testament apocalyptic.

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We return to this section of The Book of Certitude briefly, since his interpretation will be generalized to a parallel verse in the Qur'án. Moreover, Bahá'u'lláh's interpretations in this case entail certain lexical considerations. As stated, Bahá'u'lláh writes at considerable length on the words of Jesus in the Minor Apocalypse of Matthew 24 at verses 29-31:

Immediately after the oppression of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the earth shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet.⁸⁹

Shoghi Effendi's translation-modeled stylistically upon the King James Version-is from the Arabic text cited in the Persian original of the Kitáb-i Íqán. (Bahá'u'lláh cites these biblical verses in Arabic translation. He follows with a paraphrase in Persian.) Two differences in citation/translation of this text present themselves: The first, a difference over the choice of an English equivalent (Shoghi Effendi favoring "oppression" over the King James Version "tribulation"). The second is a difference reflected in the Arabic text itself, "the powers of the heavens" (King James Version) becomes, in The Book of Certitude, "the powers of the earth" (quwat al-ard), though the cosmic sense of the passage is retained.⁹⁰ In the Arabic citation, the term for "oppression" (4iq) is rendered into Persian as tangi (emended from tanki [sic] in Persian text). The lexical definition Bahá'u'lláh supplies in his Persian paraphrase of the Arabic 4iq is rather straightforward: The Persian word tangi means "tightness" (abstract⁹¹ formed from tang, "tight").

As to "oppression" versus "tribulation," the Greek word

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found in the New Testament original is thlipsin.⁹² As Shoghi Effendi notes, thlipsis literally means "pressure," while figuratively it means "oppression."⁹³ Since the figurative meaning is already supplied in the King Jánies Version and all English versions, Bahá'u'lláh's argument might strike a Western reader as specious.

Not so to the popular audience for whom The Book of Certitude was intended. To bring out that fact, Shoghi Effendi inserts a parenthesis into his translation: "Were this 'oppression' (which literally meaneth 'pressure') to be interpreted that the earth is to become contracted, or were men's idle fancy to conceive similar calamities to befall mankind, it is clear and manifest that no such happenings can ever come to pass" (emphasis added).⁹⁴ At each interpretive turn, Bahá'u'lláh takes full advantage of the opportunity to argue against literalism with regard to eschatological texts. Shoghi Effendi makes every effort to reflect this in his translation.

(2) "Heaven cloven by the clouds" at Qur'án 25:25: In apocalyptic drama, clouds often serve as the deus ex machina of the eschatological savior. Clouds are literal or figurative. Since, as a rule, clouds do not descend, they are open to interpretation in passages such as this. The descent of clouds can be considered either as the suspension of natural law which is a divine prerogative at the eschaton or as a marker, signaling the incidence of figurative speech. The first reading is governed by theological considerations (i.e., it is entirely within God's power to suspend natural law), while the latter gives interpretive priority to the text itself. In the former reading, clouds are taken literally. In the latter, the passage is figurative and clouds are representational, requiring either metaphorical or symbolic interpretation. Bahá'u'lláh opts for the latter:

By the term "clouds" is meant those things that are contrary to the ways and desires of men.... These "clouds" signify, in

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one sense, the annulment of laws, the abrogation of former Dispensations, the repeal of rituals and customs current amongst men, the exalting of the illiterate faithful above the learned opposers of the Faith. In other words, they mean the appearance of that immortal Beauty in the image of mortal man, with such human limitations as eating and drinking, poverty and riches, glory and abasement, sleeping and waking, and other such things as cast doubt in the minds of men, and cause them to turn away. All such veils are symbolically referred to as "clouds." These are the "clouds" that cause the heavens of the knowledge and understanding of all that dwell on earth to be cloven asunder. Even as He hath revealed: "On that day shall the heaven be cloven by the clouds." Even as the clouds prevent the eyes of men from beholding the sun, so do these things hinder the souls of men from recognizing the light of the divine Luminary.⁹⁵

Bahá'u'lláh's reading of verse 25:25: "On that day shall the heaven be cloven by the clouds" (emphasis added), is quite interesting. The text is cited accurately in Arabic, but there still is a variant reading here. It is not textual but is, rather, a lexically variant reading, in that the function or effective meaning of a single preposition is under question. The Arabic text of the verse Bahá'u'lláh interprets here is as follows:

wa yawma tashaqqaql as-sama"' bil-ghamdmi

Of significance is the reading of the prefixed preposition bi as an instrumental preposition (harf al-alah) carrying the lexical value "by," rather than "with," in Bahá'u'lláh's reading of the verse (the same lexical options—instrumentality and accompaniment—are likewise characteristic of the English "with"). This runs counter to the conventional sense of the text, for which, in translation, Arberry is representative: "Upon the day that heaven is split asunder with the clouds." A double interpretation obtains here through

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Shoghi Effendi's translation of the Arabic text which Bahá'u'lláh adduces. Bahá'u'lláh's interpretation of the verse in the sentence immediately following the citation suggests the instrumentality of the preposition bi, but it is Shoghi Effendi's rendering of the quranic text that makes explicit and reads into the verse instrumentality ascribed to the preposition bi.

To sustain the figurative reading required for the symbolic parallel-clouds =veils (e.g., abrogation/mortality/ doubts)-Bahá'u'lláh must make "the clouds" (al-ghamám) the logical agent of the action of "cleaving." In the verse's formal structure, heaven (sama) is the syntactical agent of tashaqqaq, which is a fifth-stem reflexive. So, grammatically speaking, "heaven," though logically passive, is the agent of the verb "cleave/cloven," which is why the preposition bi is usually read as "with," in the sense of accompaniment. Bahá'u'lláh allows for an anomalous reading here, though the figurative sense of clouds as agents of cleaving does not explicitly convey personification. This may be why Bahá'u'lláh refrains from interpreting clouds as divines (as he does elsewhere in The Book of Certitude) and restricts the symbolism to inanimate "veils." Indeed, the verbal form ghamma can be read figuratively as "to veil."

Bahá'u'lláh's reading of bi in this verse assumes an unconventional syntactical analysis, though he says nothing specific about the preposition itself. But the reading is not incorrect. The verse presents a situation of polysemy with regard to bi, in which the interpreter is obliged to supply the context. The syntactical ambiguity in the text allows for the possibility of alternative deep structures.

Bahá'u'lláh's reading results from an original interpretation of the agent/patient relationship in this verse, wherein, according to Bahá'u'lláh, the underlying structure presents the clouds as agent, and heaven as patient. By virtue of word order and case, the preposition bi in this

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verse shows a hierarchy in which heaven is higher than clouds, though this does not necessarily bear informationally on the interpretation. The instrumentality of bi is shown vividly in Shoghi Effendi's translation.

According to O'Shaughnessy, the verb tashaqqaq' is to be read nonliterally here:

The scriptural and rabbinic symbolism of the throne is paralleled by other concrete signs of approaching judgment found especially in the older suras of the Qur'án. One most commonly mentioned is the splitting open of the heavens, a phenomenon expressed by the Arabic verbs fatara, to cleave, split, rend; shaqqa, to cut lengthwise, cleave split; and faraja, to make an opening between, open, split. This type of figurative language implies, as the Hebrew Bible does, that the heaven is a canopy or metal strip that can be torn open or rolled up. Similar notions are repeated in the New Testament, for example, in Revelation, 2 Peter, and Mark's Gospel.⁹⁶

O'Shaughnessy has pointed out that heaven is split or fragmented not only as a sign of the approaching day of Judgment (Qur'án 14:48; 21:104; 25:25; 39:67; 44:10; 52:9; etc.), but also as a sign to confirm belief: to confirm a prophet's mission (Qur'án 17:92; 26:187), to vindicate Noah (54:11); as a sign rejected by disbelievers (15:14; 34:9; 52:44); and also as a sign of moral lapse: blasphemy (19:90; 42:5), polytheism (1:22). Conversely, the heaven is unsplit, either to exclude disbelievers (7:40), or as a sign of God's perfection (50:6 and 67:3).⁹⁷

Is realized eschatology really an eschatology? Read literally or symbolically, Beggiani is right to point out that: "Eschatology speculates on the fulfillment of God's plan of salvation."⁹⁸ The plot of the apocalyptic drama thickens with a sudden twist of agent here. The clouds are no longer passive in Bahá'u'lláh's interpretation. This example goes to show what kinds of new meaning can be produced from a

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text with the slightest change in reading: in this case, the change in lexical value of an innocent preposition.

What is Bahá'u'lláh's overall interpretive objective here? "Clouds" now drift into the human psyche, as the entire range of apocalyptic imagery is transferred into the realm of faith represented by a symbolic spiritual landscape. In this new location, the reader will have to exercise the same sort of judgment regarding quranic interpretation as with any other matter of faith. If the interpretation of this verse were not obvious-and indeed the symbolic gist of it has been missed (from Bahá'u'lláh's perspective) for centuries the reader may also have to reconsider prophetic credentials from the standpoint of prophecy fulfillment. A claimant who does not literally fulfill prophecy is rejected out of hand by scriptural fundamentalists. However charismatic the Báb was, he was no miracle worker. On the other hand, a claimant who points out that prophecy is not literal cannot be rejected out-of-hand for having wrought no signs and wonders. Such a candidate for prophecy fulfillment has to be considered in much more subtle terms.

Bahá'u'lláh's exegesis of "clouds" represents his broad interpretive strategy. In a sense, all prophecy concerns people and spiritual events. It is the inner landscape that the Qur'án paints a symbolic picture of. The Qur'án's "similitudes" are sometimes marked and sometimes not marked. Bahá'u'lláh's reading of "clouds" represents his reading of the text as an unmarked quranic similitude, which he then must decode.

GRAMMATICAL EXPLANATION

(1) Against received grammatical analyses at Qur'án 50:20: This is probably the most textually controversial of Bahá'u'lláh's interpretations in The Book of Certitude. To appreciate Bahá'u'lláh's interpretation of this verse, it is

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necessary to consider first the use of verbs in Arabic generally, particularly with reference to figurative uses of tense (i.e., so-called "tense metaphors").

Linguistically speaking, figuration can occur in two ways: (1) figurative use of form (i.e., syntax, morphology, grammar); or (2) lexical figuration. Both can result in a semantic interpretation which is figurative, since any instance of figuration is semantic. Diachronically, many languages demonstrate subjective location in time. This is characteristic of Western languages in which anteriority, simultaneity, and posteriority are expressed explicitly.

Not always explicit is subjective judgment of time. Subjective judgment of time does not merely draw distinctions as to past, present, and future but uses different verbal forms to express degrees of remoteness. This latter kind of judgment seems to reflect the situation in classical Arabic, in which the reference point is not necessarily the present moment of speech, but can be located in past or future. Comrie's work on tense discusses the Arabic verbal system. He represents this system as one of relative tense (in which there are relative points of reference with respect to time) rather than absolute tense (in which the point of reference for time is the present moment at the time of utterance).

Tense is form, not time. Tense can therefore act symbolically as well as literally. "The only time-marked verb (unless time-marked by a modifying functional or an adverbial)," according to Beeston, "is the suffix set verb in cases where it has dynamic aspect."⁹⁹ In other words, the Arabic verbal system shows itself to be a relative tense system rather than an absolute tense system. Subjective judgment of time may depend on syntactical (i.e., use of conditionals), lexical (i.e., time adverbials), or contextual (i.e., situational) considerations.

Those instances in which figurative uses of tense become conventional result in undermining the verbal system,

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culminating in different degrees of interdependence in tense, modality, and aspect. Thus, extra-linguistic considerations can be used to locate a reference point in time.

Another factor that should be considered is ellipsis. Arab linguists would often reconstruct a missing element along an assumed deep structure of a given text. Missing elements would then be supplied in the course of analysis.

At this juncture Bahá'u'lláh challenges the assumptions which governed (and still govern) the received grammatical analysis of Qur'án 50:20. His argument is bold and presents a new reading of the text against the view which had achieved a level of consensus. In the passage below, Bahá'u'lláh recapitulates the received exegesis of the verse. Two traditional analyses are presented: (1) ellipsis; and (2) tense figuration.

As the commentators of the Qur'án ('ulamay-i tafsír) and they that follow the letter thereof (ahl-i zahir) misapprehended the inner meaning (batin) of the words of God and failed to grasp their essential purpose, they sought to demonstrate that, according to the rules of grammar, whenever the term "idhá" (meaning "if" or "when") precedeth the past tense, it invariably hath reference to the future. Later, they were sore perplexed in attempting to explain those verses of the Book wherein that term did not actually occur. Even as He hath revealed: "And there was a blast on the trumpet,—lo! it is the threatened Day! And every soul is summoned to a reckoning,—with him an impeller and a witness" (Qur'án 50:20). In explaining this and similar verses, they have in some cases argued that the term "idhá" is implied.

In other instances, they have idly contended that whereas the Day of Judgment is inevitable, it hath therefore been referred to as an event not of the future but of the past. How vain their sophistry! How grievous their blindness! They refuse to recognize the trumpet blast which so explicitly in this text was sounded through the revelation of Muhammad.¹⁰⁰

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The Arabic text of the quranic verse is as follows:

wa-nufikha fi'l-quri dhalika yawmu
al-wa'di wa-ju'at kullu nafsin maha saiqun wa shahidun
la-qad k unta fi ghaflatin min hadha fakashafna 'anka
ghata'aka fa-bÁqáruka al-yawma hadidun

Bahá'u'lláh ascribes to Qur'án commentators two possible justifications for reading futurity into this highly representative eschatological verse: futurity due to the ellipted particle idha; and futurity due to use of a past tense metaphor for a future event due to certainty of occurrence (subjective judgment of time). The former is a syntactical analysis, while the latter is a contextual approach.

As to the implied (ellipted) idhá in the verse's deep structure, Arab grammarians would have had little difficulty citing quranic verses in which the idha nufikha construction explicitly occurs (e.g., Qur'án 23:101, 36:51, 39:68, 69:13). Verses in which idhá is lacking in connection with nufikha—ellipted or otherwise—are 18:99, 6:73, 20:102, 27:87, 78:18, thus providing textual parallels to 50:20. Arab grammarians tended to resolve the use of past tense in clearly eschatological contexts as instances of majáz (figuration).¹⁰¹

As N. Kinberg points out:

A formal integration of grammatical tropes as a sub-category of figures is exhibited by as-Suyuiti (d. 911/1505). In his work on Qur'ánic sciences (al-itqan fi 'ulum al-Qurlan), as-Suyuti dedicates a chapter to literal and figurative language in the Qur'án. In this chapter, the author specifies a sub-category of trope in which a grammatical form is used in a "transferred, deviant" way (majaz), instead of its "regular, ordinary" usage (haqiqa). In this sub-category he adduces examples of anomalous occurrences of certain verbal derivations; ... expressing the future by means of a past verb due to the certainty of its occurrence (namely, the so-called "prophetic perfect"). ¹⁰²

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This kind of analysis does not require an ellipted idha. Al-Suyuti, for instance, adduces a parallel verse at Qur'án 39:68 to argue that the Qur'án exhibits a figurative use of tense (in this case, of passive past tense) to imply futurity.¹⁰³ A similar analysis in the discipline of Islam

An interesting observation regarding figurative use of tenses is made by al-Qazwini (d. 1338 C.E.) in his commentary on as-Sakkáki. In a short discussion about non-literal usage of grammatical forms, he not only mentions the use of past tense to express the future, but also specifies the rhetorical motive behind this anomalous use of tense, namely: "in order to call attention to the certainty of its occurrence."¹⁰⁴

This presumed tense figuration has its analogue in the biblical use of "prophetic perfect."¹⁰⁵ The coexistence of two alternate explanations for the assumed futurity of the verse in question shows the interpretation of Qur'án 50:20 to be less decisive than thought, and oblivious to a possible reading of the text in which the point of reference in time is Muhammad's own historical present.

Concerning Arabic verbs generally, one cannot speak of definite markedness for time. In any event, what follows in the text Lo! it is the threatened Day is a nominal clause (with no verb), identificatory relative to theme and predicate, static in aspect, and thus not marked for time (though here expressing simultaneity with the preceding clause). However, one can establish a hierarchy of futurity, in which idhá + suffix conjugation, and yawma + prefix (imperfect) conjugation (as in Qur'án 20:102) stand at one end of the time continum, whereas the suffix conjugation with no idha stands at the other end.

As to the former approach, the verb nufikha ("was blown") is an internal passive. As to aspect (considered by Beeston to be "more important than time"¹⁰⁶), the event-stating predicate

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is dynamic (depicting a change from one situation to another, in contrast to static aspect). Given the aspectually dynamic nature of the verb in this instance, the verb has a necessary setting in time. This verb-as a suffix set itempredicates a fact (whereas the prefix set embodies a notional concept, represented in English by the auxiliary use of "could," "might," "would," etc.).¹⁰⁷ It is clearly marked for past tense (tense, defined as a grammaticalized indication of time). In this special context, the time reference of the suffix conjugation would most naturally be interpreted as past, unless extra-grammatical considerations locate the point of reference either in the past or in the future. But the question as to whether or not past tense here is past time is a matter of interpretation, if Comrie's analysis of the Arabic verbal system is correct, i.e., that Arabic is a system structured on relative tense.

If one assumes that all trumpet blasts in the Qur'án consistently refer to eschatological events, and that the eschaton is in the distant future, then it is easy to argueon the basis of those verses where idha does occur—that there must be an ellipted idha at Qur'án 50:20. It could be argued from silence that Bahá'u'lláh seems to disregard the other trumpet blast verses having an actual idhá present, and privileges this verse for an unconventional—though literal—reading with respect to time. In rejecting both arguments adduced by grammarians—ellipted idha and futurity expressed as certainty—by implication, Bahá'u'lláh appears to accept the idha nufikha parallels as references to a future eschaton, whereas Qur'án 50:20 is taken to refer to a past eschaton, contextualized with the revelation of Muhammad However, Bahá'u'lláh does accept the futurity of the trumpet blast at Matthew 24:31.

One remaining question is whether Bahá'u'lláh read this verse as iterative (that is, reenacting itself in every prophetic dispensation). There is no marked form to express this notion.

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Since iterative notionality expresses recurrence, Arabic (as other languages) tends to present such notionality as a state. Moreover, such notions of habituality are most often expressed in the present (e.g., the present simple tense). A suffix conjugation can express iterativity (as in proverbs or in oaths [performative]). But the dynamic aspect of Qur'án 50:20 seems to rule out this possibility.

The functional idha—as a time-marking subordinator—takes the syntactical structure of a conditional (medieval Arab grammarians construed this functional as an adverbial as well as a conditional). Since an event envisaged in the future cannot be a fact (as it might not take place), future time using idha would take the characteristic conditional construct. In other words, in order for the analysis of an implied idha to be valid, a corresponding conditional structure (protasis/apodosis) must obtain. But in the case of Qur'án 50:20, a conditional structure is not necessarily present. If protasislapodosis can be ruled out here, so can an ellipted idha. Otherwise, a prefix set item—with its notional value—should be used here to express futurity.¹⁰⁸ But the problem with this analysis is that ellipses of apodoses in quranic Arabic is a common construction.¹⁰⁹

How else could this verse express futurity when the verb here clearly indicates past time? The other alternative, leading to the same interpretive result, is figurative use of tense-similar to that of the "prophetic perfect" in Hebrew-in which the subjective location of point of reference is in the future. The more natural reading of this verse would be to find a present point of reference identical with the present moment of speech. In Bahá'u'lláh's interpretation, Qur'án 50:20 is coextensive with the revelation of Muhammad. Bahá'u'lláh's argument for a contemporary historical approach to the passage cited is the controlling hermeneutical principle here.

A principle to bear in mind is that figurative usage of

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language is often not marked, but context-dependent. The present tense implication of the nominal clause is rendered so by Arberry ("That is the Day of the Threat") and by Sher 'Ali ("This is the Day of Promise") and Rodwell ("It is the Threatened Day!") where the same verb can be rendered "promised" or "threatened," depending on positive or negative connotations associated with the text.

In arguing against tense figuration, Bahá'u'lláh comes close to arguing for figuration on a lexical level. Remember that grammarians would analyze the deep structure of texts in terms of ellipsis when the surface structure did not support their reading. Virtually all commentators on this passage work under the assumption that, since the text is manifestly eschatological, it must have a future meaning. The circular argument to which Bahá'u'lláh objects is recourse by grammarians to one of two explanations to support an assumed reading. If the argument for (1) an ellipted idha fails, due to lack of a corresponding conditional structure, the grammarians fall back on (2) a context-dependent argument. This is tantamount to having one's cake and eating it, too. Bahá'u'lláh, however, introduces a third possibility: (3) a literal reading of the verse as to time.

In accepting a literal reading with respect to time, Bahá'u'lláh adopts what amounts to an anti-majázi analysis of time in order to realize a greater rhetorical potential for the verse. A literal reading as to time here results in a figurative meaning for the entire constellation of eschatological imagery found in the Qur'án. At this interpretive juncture, exegesis becomes purely symbolic, since Bahá'u'lláh's argument is still a majázi one on a lexical level.

The significance of this exegesis becomes apparent when Bahá'u'lláh's literal reading of the verse regarding time effects a sweeping interpretive reversal of the traditional Islamic understanding of quranic apocalyptic as invariably

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located in the future. The traditional Islamic view allows for miracles to abound in this interpretive eschaton, permitting a literal understanding of the eschaton itself with scarce regard for implausibility. By contrast, in Bahá'u'lláh's reading of Qur'án 50:20, all eschatological imagery becomes symbolic, since the impossibility of the quranic scenario having literally come to pass in Muhammad's lifetime should be apparent.

(2) "Perchance it is nigh" in Qur'án 17:51: Bahá'u'lláh sustains his contemporary and historical reading of Qur'án 50:20 in his exegesis of Qur'án 17:51, concerning the imminence of the eschatological "Hour." The identification of the Day of Judgment with the advent of Muhammad is, for Bahá'u'lláh, borne out in the verse at Qur'án 17:51: "Erelong will they wag their heads at Thee, and say, 'When shall this be?' Say: 'Perchance it is nigh.'""O Bahá'u'lláh's commentary on this verse illustrates one of the exegetical devices whereby tawíl is brought into alignment with the controlling hermeneutical principle of a repeated eschaton at each theophanic advent:

Nay, by "trumpet" is meant the trumpet-call of Muhammad's Revelation, which was sounded in the heart of the universe, and by "resurrection" is meant His own rise to proclaim the Cause of God. He bade the erring and wayward arise and speed out of the sepulchres of their bodies, arrayed them with the beauteous robe of faith, and quickened them with the breath of a new and wondrous life. Thus at the hour when Muhammad, that divine Beauty, purposed to unveil one of the mysteries hidden in the symbolic terms "resurrection," "judgment," "paradise," and "hell," Gabriel, the Voice of Inspiration, was heard saying: "Erelong will they wag their heads at Thee, and say, 'When shall this be?' Say: 'Perchance it is nigh.'" The implications of this verse alone suffice the peoples of the world, were they to ponder it in their hearts.¹¹¹

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Expectation of an imminent eschaton ("the Hour") is one thing. Acceptance of its realization is quite another. If Bahá'u'lláh can succeed in convincing the reader that an eschaton did take place at the advent of Muhammad, by appealing to the past as a foil for the present, the plausibility of a realized eschaton in the reader's own present is not so untenable as once thought. Once the eschaton is voided of its supernatural character, its realization becomes a matter of spiritual discernment.

A choice will have to be made by the reader as to who is right: the ulama or Bahá'u'lláh. The reader initially predicates legitimacy on interpretive grounds. If the learned divines can be discredited, the reader will naturally be expected to entertain the validity of another source of authority who can offer a better interpretation. Bahá'u'lláh's interpretations throughout The Book of Certitude undermine the consensus vested in learned Islamic exegesis. Bahá'u'lláh's first challenge to traditional authority rests on interpretive grounds. In the post-Baghdad period (1863-92), Bahá'u'lláh will challenge that authority on other grounds.

RHETORICAL EXPLANATION

(1) The mathal of bread/fruit in Qur'án 76:9; 5:117; 14:24: Figurative language is nonliteral representation. The trick for the reader is to recognize symbolic language when it is not obvious. In good didactic fashion, Bahá'u'lláh exposes the reader to obviously representational verses from the Qur'án, as an approach to nonexplicit symbolism:

This wronged One will cite but one of these instances, thus conferring upon mankind, for the sake of God, such bounties as are yet concealed within the treasury of the hidden and sacred Tree, that haply mortal men may not remain deprived of their share of the immortal fruit, land attain to a dewdrop

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of the waters of everlasting life which, from Baghdad, the "Abode of Peace," are being vouchsafed unto all mankind. We ask neither meed nor reward. "We nourish your souls for the sake of God; we seek from you neither recompense nor thanks" (Qur'án 76:9).

This is the food that conferreth everlasting life upon the pure in heart and the illumined in spirit. This is the bread of which it is said: "Lord, send down upon us Thy bread from Heaven" (Qur'án 5:117). This bread shall never be withheld from them that deserve it, nor can it be exhausted. It groweth everlastingly from the tree of grace; it descendeth at all seasons from the heavens of justice and mercy. Even as He saith: "Seest thou not to what God likeneth a good word? To a good tree; its roots firmly fixed, and its branches reaching unto heaven; yielding its fruit in all seasons" (Qur'án 14:24).¹¹²

We immediately notice the self-reference to "the hidden and sacred Tree" in keeping with messianic secrecy. But this is not the main point of the passage. Clearly, the term ka- (like; as) in the text is a rhetorical flag. Even more explicit is the inevitable allusion to the verse following at Qur'án 14:25. Arberry renders both verses so:

Hast thou not seen how God has struck a similitude? A good word is as a good tree-its roots are firm, and its branches are in heaven; it gives its produce every season by the leave of its Lord. So God strikes similitudes for men; haply they will remember.

The equation, nourishment=bread=fruit from heaven, is an effective inner-quranic exegesis which identifies references to food in the Qur'án as having spiritual purport.

Behind the general reference lies a specific one. Bahá'u'lláh states that his exegesis promises to vouchsafe to "mortal men" their "share of the immortal fruit" which comes from Baghdad, the "Abode of Peace." This allusion to Qur'án 10:25 and 6:127 redraws the eschatological map. The sacred

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cartography of paradise finds its literal Cartesian coordinates in the "Abode of Peace." Earthly Baghdad, unlikely enough, ends up as the literal location of an eschatological symbol in this interpretation. Subtly-in retrospect obviously-Bahá'u'lláh hints at his concealed station as the "hidden and sacred Tree" in eschatological. paradise, from which flow the "waters of everlasting life" and in which is grown "the immortal fruit."¹¹³

(2) God's Light (Qur'án 9.33) and God as Light (Qur'án 24:35): Bahá'u'lláh's writings are rife with metaphors. In the passage below, for example, he takes up a biblical metaphor in saying: "Gird up the loins of endeavour" (kamar-t himmat-ra muhkam bayad bast). The metaphor of girding up one's loins had its origin in ancient belt-wrestling.¹¹⁴ but over time the metaphor eclipsed its original referent and transformed into a faded or "dead" metaphor. Bahá'u'lláh works in quranic metaphors stylistically as well, such that there is an implicit reinforcement of every act of exegesis with the abundant literary use of metaphorical expression.

As much for rhetorical as well as exclamatory purposes, Bahá'u'lláh adduces two verses with light imagery:

Dear friend! Now when the light of God's everlasting Morn (subh-i azal [a reference to Bahá'u'lláh himself]) is breaking, when the radiance of His holy words: "God is the light of the heavens and of the earth" (Qur'án 24:35) is shedding illumination upon all mankind; when the inviolability of His tabernacle is being proclaimed by His sacred utterance: "God hath willed to perfect His light" (Qur'an 9:33); and the Hand of Omnipotence, bearing His testimony: "in His grasp He holdeth the Kingdom of all things," is being outstretched unto all the peoples and kindreds of the earth; it behooveth us to gird up the loins of endeavour, that haply, by the grace of God, we may enter the celestial City.¹¹⁵

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The former verse, of course, is the celebrated "Light Verse" of the Qur'án. Bahá'í scholar Abii'l-Fa41, following the authoritative rhetorician al-Taftazani, observes that in the same verse the statement "the likeness of His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp" (Qur'án 24:35) is an explicit simile (tashbih).¹¹⁶ Bahá'u'lláh takes full advantage of known and accepted quranic similes and metaphors (i.e., the general Islamic acceptance of God's "light," God's "hand," etc. as figurative) and, through frequent use of Persian genitivemetaphors, stylistically inundates the reader with metaphorical expressions.

Far from being merely ornate, his style renders the actual task of interpretation easier, as Bahá'u'lláh acelimates the reader to a metaphorical view of reality. Any reference to God's "hand" is likely to be understood as a patent metaphor, though the reader is immediately presented with an unfamiliar metaphor: "the celestial City." This nonquranic expression is explained later in The Book of Certitude:

Therefore, whosoever, and in whatever Dispensation, hath recognized and attained unto the presence of these glorious, these resplendent and most excellent Luminaries, hath verily attained unto the "Presence of God" Himself, and entered the city of eternal and immortal life. Attainment unto such presence is possible only in the Day of Resurrection, which is the rise of God Himself through His all-embracing Revelation.¹¹⁷

In the course of this passage, distinctions between quranic figurative language and Bahá'u'lláh's own become blurred. Exegesis is ongoing, nevertheless, as Bahá'u'lláh reiterates his "Presence of God" as "Manifestation of God" equivalence. In this passage, light imagery is subtly woven into the exegetical process, such that the very use of the expression "Luminaries" to mean Messengers of God resonates with the entire range of quranic light imagery. In

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fine, much of Bahá'u'lláh's rhetorical exegesis is augmented by his rhetorical style.

(3) "Wherefore slew ye them?"—Typology at Qur'án 3:183 and Qur'án 2:89: As to ingenuity in argument and the use of rhetorical reasoning, one of the most interesting sections of The Book of Certitude is Bahá'u'lláh's commentary on a quranic accusation that can best be read typologically. Bahá'u'lláh wishes to establish that the persecutors of the Báb are essentially the same in character as the slayers of the prophets of old. He cites a quranic proof-text to this effect, arguing that a literal reading of the verse would lead to absurdity:

And it came to pass that on a certain day a number of opponents of that peerless Beauty, those who had strayed far from God's imperishable Sanctuary, scornfully spoke these words unto Muhammad: "Verily, God hath entered into a covenant with us that we are not to credit an apostle until he present us a sacrifice which fire out of heaven shall devour" (Qur'án 3:183). The purport of this verse is that God hath covenanted with them that they should not believe in any messenger unless he work the miracle of Abel and Cain, that is, offer a sacrifice, and the fire from heaven consume it; even as they had heard it recounted in the story of Abel, which story is recorded in the scriptures. To this, Mu4ammad, answering, said: "Already have Apostles before me come to you with sure testimonies, and with that of which ye speak. Wherefore slew ye them? Tell me, if ye are men of truth" (Qur'án 3:183).

And now be fair: How could those people living in the days of Muhammad have existed, thousands of years before, in the age of Adam or other Prophets? Why should Muhammad, that Essence of truthfulness, have charged the people of His day with the murder of Abel or other Prophets? Thou hast none other alternative except to regard Muhammad as an impostor or a fool—which God forbid!—or to maintain that those people of wickedness were the self-same people who in

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every age opposed and caviled at the Prophets and Messengers of God, till they finally caused them all to suffer martyrdom.¹¹⁸

The reader will recall that Bahá'u'lláh cites the Qur'án in Arabic and chooses at times to paraphrase the gist of it in Persian for those on whom the Arabic is lost. The argument here is clearly rhetorical, where Muhammad's exclamation, "Wherefore slew ye them?" (Qur'án 3:183)¹¹⁹ is shown to be typological. This verse is understood in much the same vein as Christ's indictment of the Jewish leaders of his day of complicity in the death of the prophets of yore (Matthew 23:34-35).

Likewise, Bahá'u'lláh adduces Qur'án 2:89 to establish that the hard-heartedness of the people in his day convicts them, even in quranic terms, of being the self-same oppressors of old:

Likewise, Muhammad, in another verse, uttereth His protest against the people of that age. He saith: "Although they had before prayed for victory over those who believed not, yet when there came unto them, He of Whom they had knowledge, they disbelieved in Him. The curse of God on the infidels!" (Qur'án 2:189.) Reflect how this verse also implieth that the people living in the days of Muhammad were the same people who, in the days of the Prophets of old, contended and fought in order to promote the Faith, and teach the Cause of God. And yet, how could the generations living at the time of Jesus and Moses, and those who lived in the days of Muhammad, be regarded as being actually one and the same people?

Moreover, those whom they had formerly known were Moses, the Revealer of the Pentateuch, and Jesus, the Author of the Gospel. Notwithstanding, why did Muhammad say: "When He of Whom they had knowledge came unto them'—that is Jesus or Moses—"they disbelieved in Him?" Was not Muhammad to outward seeming called by a different name?

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How then can the truth of this verse be established, and its meaning be made clear?¹²⁰

This mode of reasoning is consistent with the treatment of Qur'án 3:183 above, and it should be pointed out that two verses later (at Qur'án 2:91) there is a parallel to verse 3:183: "Say: Why were you slaying the Prophets of God in former time, if you were believers?"¹²¹ This would seem to corroborate Bahá'u'lláh's interpretation.

Some simple rhetorical reasoning is sufficient to flesh out a typology which can be applied across prophetic history to the present. If the infidels of Muhammad's day were the same as the disbelievers of old, then the persecutors of the Bábís must be seen to be the same, according to this line of interpretation. Yet the "return" of the infidels of yore is an incomplete reenactment in the apocalyptic drama unless there is a prophet who "returns" as well. The villain is meaningless without the hero. And when he does return in a later age, what happens?

Bahá'u'lláh carries the extended typological metaphor one step further:

Strive therefore to comprehend the meaning of "return" which hath been so explicitly revealed in the Qur'án itself, and which none hath as yet understood. What sayest thou? If thou sayest that Muhammad was the "return" of the Prophets of old, as is witnessed by this verse, His Companions must likewise be the "return" of bygone Companions, even as the "return" of the former people is clearly attested by the text of the above-mentioned verses.... Furthermore, it is evident to thee that the Bearers of the trust of God are made manifest to the peoples of the earth as the Exponents of a new Cause and the Bearers of a new Message.¹²²

Within Islam, certain eschatological predictions foretell the return of Jesus and other prophets, as well as the return of al-Dajjal (i.e., Abu-Sufyan) and other evil men.

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By accepting the concept of the return of certain ancient worthies and their enemies, Bahá'u'lláh completes the extended metaphor, pointing out that if the circumstances surrounding the advent of a past messenger are to be reenacted, it is only logical to expect that a new religion replete with scripture and law would be brought as well. This idea of a new revelation and a new law is developed throughout The Book of Certitude. What is ostensibly a commentary on certain eschatological verses of the Qur'án ends up to be an argument for its supersession by a new revelation.

PERIPHRASIS

(1) Periphrasis on the Mysterious Letters at Qur'án 2:1: On the isolated letters (alif, lam, mim) that open the Sura of the Cow, Bahá'u'lláh's interpretation is as mainstream as it is incidental. He states: "In the disconnected letters o